Sucking Vacuum and other stories - A compendium of space warfare
by Palladius
Summary: The galaxy as we know it was shaped by war. And to prosecute a war spacecraft are required. When spacecraft belonging to two opposing factions meet a space battle occurs. This is a collaborative compendium of space warfare past, present and future.
1. Sucking Vacuum

The galaxy as we know it was shaped by war. And in order to prosecute war on a galactic scale, ships are required. When ships belonging to opposing forces meet a space battle occurs. This is an archive of space warfare, past present and future. Welcome to Sucking Vacuum and other stories - A Compendium of Space Warfare.

Before we get started, I would like to tell you all a little bit about this fic. This will be a collection of short space battle scenes from the history of the Mass Effect universe. Although I, Palladius, will be writing several, I am not the only one who will be contributing to this collection. If you wish to contribute, all you need to do is write a scene (or tear one out of your own story) and PM it to me. All contributions will be posted but I reserve the right to edit them for spelling/grammar corrections only. Without further ado ... Space battle.

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Palladius presents ...

SUCKING VACUUM

2183 CE - Battle of the Citadel

The Citadel fleet operates thousands of warships ranging from tiny one-man fighters to kilometre-long dreadnoughts. Each unit has its own part to play in any space engagement. In any battle, the cruisers screen the dreadnoughts and make up the bulk of the fleet's firepower, frigates darting ahead to unleash torpedoes as the grim mass of the dreadnoughts press towards the enemy, hurling ferrous shells accelerated to around 2 per cent of lightspeed.

The popular image of soldiers manning the guns, swivelling them to manually track ships is a fallacy propagated by cheap action flicks. In reality, the speeds at which space vessels travel necessitate the vast majority of the actual fighting be delegated to VIs, capable of reacting in nanoseconds. Likewise, there are hundreds of false assumptions made about space combat, most of them holdovers from the days of atmospheric aerial combat or even oceanic naval combat. No air or gravity radically alters the playing field.

All this was most decidedly not at the forefront of Salarian dreadnought captain Ollinn Kirosa as an armada of Geth ships poured through Relay 062, closing in on the Citadel.

The bridge of the Vermaeto was in a state of barely controlled chaos as Captain Kirosa pounded on the arm of his command chair, reedy voice bullying his bridge crew into action. The bridge of the Salarian Jaeto-class dreadnought was circular, buried deep within the ship's central bulk and relying on sensor uplinks from the vessel's hull to act as the ship's brain. Evolution had sacrificed durability when it placed the brain sticking out of the body and Salarian shipbuilders weren't about to make the same mistake. The bridge was a two-tiered affair, with the captain's chair, helm and navigation consoles up on the central higher tier, 75 per cent of the remaining lower tier taken up with a ring of control stations and an extension of the higher tier with stairs on both sides extending off to the door of the bridge, found to Kirosa's right.

Technicians leaped into their stations as the Captain snapped out orders, slowly bringing the ponderous dreadnought around to face bows-on to the invading Geth. In total there were six dreadnoughts in the Citadel Defence Fleet. Glancing at one of the floor to ceiling tactical plots projected on the curving wall of the bridge Kirosa watched the Asari dreadnought Transcendant Goddess come around, the faint blue glow emanating from her mass effect impeller turning her far quicker than the Vermaeto. Behind her, he could see the Turian dreadnoughts Stalwart Blade of Digeris and Proud Heart of Bostra swooping round together, their movements more reminiscent of aerial predators than kilometre long starships. Looking out at the hostile fleet, Kirosa observed the insect-like ships approaching. One in particular appeared far larger than the others.

"Tactical, get me a range on that one."

The tactical officers, noting the vessel the Captain was indicating, pinged an active sensor band at it, consisting of extrapolating its course and shining a low intensity laser in its path. By measuring when the laser was scattered the sensor techs could calculate the disparity between the ship's observed and actual location and thus how long the laser took to transit between the Vermaeto and the target ship.

He anxiously drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he waited on the answer.

"Six light-seconds, Captain."

Six light seconds ... Impossible! He quickly ran some mental math.

"That thing must be two kilometres long, at least!"

"Orders, Captain?"

He barely had to think about it.

"Open gun ports."

The kilometre long length of the Vermaeto shuddered as three metre thick slabs of high density ceramic armour hinged aside, exposing the barrels of the dreadnought's main guns. Smaller shutters in the ship's spine and flanks opened, exposing the telescopic barrels of the ship's eight quad-linked secondary mass accelerator turrets, the squat blisters of missile banks and the blue-tinted bulbs of GARDIAN laser defences. Despite himself, Kirosa felt a surge of raw excitement, an emotion mirrored by everyone on the bridge. The Vermaeto had been constructed to wage war. Here, she was in her element.

"Captain, incoming transmission from the Destiny Ascension."

Nodding his assent, he glanced at the image of the Ascension holding station over the Presidium as another part of the bridge wall was replaced with a grid, each one showing the face of a different dreadnought captain. The sixth box in the grid was occupied by a third Turian face, that of the Captain of the carrier Fierce Cry of Macedyn. Kirosa personally didn't see the point in carriers. The Human innovation involved ladening down a dreadnought sized hull with hundreds of interceptors and bombers. The resulting ships were slow, lightly defended and supremely vulnerable.

"Captains." That was Matriarch Lidyana, captain of the Destiny Ascension and de facto admiral of the defence fleet. "The Citadel is crawling with Geth infantry, we're evacuating the Council as we speak. It is imperative the approaching fleet does not link up with the Geth ground presence. Intercept three light seconds from the Citadel. Good luck."

Kirosa glanced around at his display. While the captains had been talking the VIs had linked and calculated the optimum formation for the imminent fleet barrage. Nodding his assent, he felt the faint rock as his dreadnought surged into position with a hard burn from the manoeuvring thrusters. With the Destiny Ascension engaged recovering the Councillors, the five other dreadnoughts formed a cross formation with the Transcendant Goddess in the centre, the cruisers arranged in a rough vertical disc around the dreadnoughts with the frigates and the Turian carrier hiding behind the bulk of the fleet.

The Geth fleet were taking up a similar formation, the central super-dreadnought flanked by the three dreadnought-sized Geth vessels, the remainder seemingly partway between a frigate and a cruiser dispersed widely, interspersed with swarms of sixty metre dropships and tiny fighters. Kirosa tapped his console and spoke the words every dreadnought captain fears and longs to speak.

"Load primary."

###

"LOAD PRIMARY!"

In the main battery of the Vermaeto, every Salarian was stripped to the waist and sweating profusely. So close to the main gun and the engine room, the ship's cooling system could barely keep the temperature survivable. Comfortable was a pipe dream.

The gunnery chief puffed out his lungs, preparing to holler again. He was a particularly large Salarian by the name of Mosok Charbon, one who ran his gunnery department with ruthless standards. The sailors under his command tapped away at their control banks, eager to give the attackers a taste of what their ship could do.

The autoloader cycled, dropping an osmium-tipped armour penetrating shell into the breech of the main gun. Ten decks below them, the scene was being repeated for the second main gun, both stations reporting ready at the same time.

"Gun loaded."

"Spinning up mag-coils."

With a metallic grating sound the enormous magnetic coils that lined the barrel of the gun began to spin up, coolant gas beginning to spray into the room from vents in the ceiling in order to keep the temperature in the main battery within habitable parameters. The light in the room took on a reddish tinge as the thermal conduits began to glow red hot.

"Mag coils at full revolution."

"Engaging mass effect field."

While not quite able to replicate the massless tunnel used by relays to facilitate FTL travel, the mass effect field lowered the mass of the slug sitting in the weapon by a factor of one hundred, allowing it to be accelerated by the powerful magnetic field the coils could produce.

"Gun one ready to fire. Transferring control to gunnery VI now."

###

The fleets were getting closer and closer together. Kirosa couldn't help but anxiously jitter as the icons representing the Geth vessels neared the green ring that represented the maximum effective range of the Vermaeto's main guns. The whole bridge was silent, eagerly anticipating the instant when the icons would cross the line.

They inched closer, closer still, then crossed.

The entire vessel was rattled as the main guns spat out their armour piercing shells, the entire fleet stabbing out as one. The dreadnought shells had almost twice the muzzle velocity of the cruiser shells, meaning they intersected the Geth fleet seconds before the cruiser shells.

The forward surface of the Geth dreadnoughts lit up as one of the Turian dreadnoughts landed a hit but other than that their shells went sailing past the Geth fleet. Kirosa pounded his chair in annoyance.

"What just happened?"

The reply was quick to come, accompanying a replay on the screens of the bridge.

"The Geth dodged the shells."

Kirosa resisted the urge to smack himself on the head. He had broken the cardinal rule of warfare. If you make an assumption you screw things up, every time. He assumed the Geth dreadnoughts were limited to the same level of mobility as the Vermaeto, when in fact the only reason his dreadnought wasn't doing backflips was the necessity of safeguarding the organic crew from crushing G-force.

"Keep firing. See if the VI can predict their movements."

In order to prevent the vibrations from the cannon shaking the ship apart, the firing was spread out with the second gun firing approximately half a second after the first one. The double thumps sounding once every three seconds sounded like a heartbeat as the dreadnought continued to spit fury at the approaching Geth.

A shell from an Asari heavy cruiser caught a Geth destroyer head on, shattering its barrier. Seemingly stunned by the impact, the ship was easy prey for a fusillade from a Turian light cruiser squadron. Kirosa leaned forward, eyes narrowed at his display.

"Why aren't the Geth returning fire?"

As he gaped in amazement, the entire Geth fleet began to disintegrate. Dreadnoughts and destroyers blew apart, fighters careened drunkenly into dropships.

"What the ..."

He didn't have much time to boggle. The advanced ECM probes that had been projecting the images of the Geth fleet self-destructed as the real Geth fleet, hiding on the very edge of the nebula for days, emerged from FTL behind the Citadel fleet.

The Vermaeto's bridge exploded into chaos as Kirosa began snapping out orders. The enormous ship slewed round in concert with the rest of the fleet, bringing her formidable array of broadside weaponry to bear.

"Range?"

"Ten light milliseconds."

The space combat equivalent of going at each other with knives. In one move the Geth had negated the primary advantage of the dreadnought - long range punch.

Captain Kirosa selected a target - one of the Geth dreadnoughts, his systems telling him both Turian dreadnoughts had selected the same target.

"Full broadside on my mark."

Both Turian dreadnoughts and their attendant cruisers signalled green.

"Fire."

The left flank of the Vermaeto came alive. Waves of Disruptor torpedoes rippled out of their launch sites, closing the distance between the two vessels in about two seconds. GARDIAN laser fire flickered out, but when faced with the broadside barrages from three dreadnoughts and their attendant cruisers there was no chance of intercepting them all. Around thirty per cent of the Vermaeto's torpedoes struck home, the combined fusillade knocking the Geth dreadnought's barriers down to around half strength. The attack was immediately followed up by the roaring of mass accelerator fire, each of the four secondary turrets on the left side of the dreadnought spitting out chunks of hyperaccelerated metal that pounded on the target's already weakened barrier, accompanied by the hundreds of rapid fire cannon set into the Salarian dreadnought's flank. Lacking the eezo payloads of the Disruptor torpedoes, the mass accelerator rounds weren't quite as effective as the initial barrage but they still took their toll.

"Sir, hostile dreadnought is opening gun ports!"

Kirosa leaned forward in his chair.

"Who are they targeting?"

"The ... The Destiny Ascension, sir."

The majestic Asari dreadnought soared up from between two of the Wards, her gun ports open and barriers at full strength. Not that it did much good. The initial Geth barrage hit her full on the bows, balls of plasma cutting through her barrier with impunity and carving deep gouges in her hull. Every Geth ship in their fleet joined in the barrage, destroyers pounding away as dropships swooped in to unleash plasma bolts at close range. Pounding the arm of his chair once more, Kirosa practically roared out his next order.

"Protect the Ascension! General melee!"

Those orders were echoed throughout the Citadel fleet, formations disintegrating as the fleet moved to engage the Geth armada. In his hurry to engage the Geth he forgot there was still one signal left in the Geth decoy fleet.

The entire ship bucked and jerked as something blew through her armour, shattering her engines and exposing about ten per cent of her compartments to hard vacuum. The bridge was instantly filled with blaring alarms, Kirosa gripping his chair in alarm as the vessel rocked beneath him.

"What was that?"

Reports started filling the air as the bridge crew fell over themselves trying to answer the question.

"We took a major hit ..."

"Barrier punctured ..."

"Hull breach in Engineering ..."

"Venting atmosphere ..."

"Eezo core breach probable ..."

Kirosa held out a hand.

"Stop. Damage control."

The damage control watch stander gulped and delivered his report.

"Main engines have been destroyed, sir. Eezo core has been breached, engineers are trying to contain it. K-barriers are offline."

Kirosa gripped the edge of his chair.

"How ..."

The watch stander gestured to the display, where the squid-like dreadnought was making a beeline for the Citadel.

"A single shot from that thing tore through our barriers and armour like they weren't even there."

Kirosa's fists clenched as the Geth super-dreadnought disappeared into the arms of the Citadel just as they closed.

"Dammit!"

The situation didn't look good. Along with the Vermaeto, one of the Turian dreadnoughts had been disabled by the Geth flagship as it breezed through the fleet and the Ascension, cut off from the rest of the defence fleet, was getting pounded.

"How are our manoeuvring thrusters?"

The helmsman quickly replied.

"Still active."

"Good. Full burn on manoeuvring thrusters, all available weapons fire on targets of opportunity. Get us to the Ascension."

The crew, to their credit, didn't hesitate. They knew that riding a crippled dreadnought into firepower that could punch holes in the Destiny Ascension was suicide but they did it anyway. Kirosa tuned out the repeated damage reports, instead focusing on the feel of his ship, charging into her last fight. He had no doubt they were going to die, that their gesture was likely futile. All he could do was unleash everything his crippled ship had left and pray for a miracle.

"Captain? We're picking up new contacts on the scanners."

The entire bridge crew tensed.

"LADAR silhouettes match Systems Alliance ships."

Kirosa allowed the uproar of celebration to continue for precisely eleven seconds before he snapped the crew back into focus.

"My orders remain unchanged. We fight until we can no longer, no matter the cost."

The cheer that brought up almost matched the one the Systems Alliance had caused.

Mass accelerator shells filled the space around the Destiny Ascension, smashing aside Geth ships before they could react. Into the devastation the Vermaeto ponderously sailed, any functional weapons roaring despite the fact that the back 20 per cent of the ship was a ruin.

"Destiny Ascension, you are in the clear. The Citadel is opening, all ships focus fire on Sovereign. Take that monster down."

Kirosa's next order came out as a ferocious snarl.

"Load primary."

###

Mosok Charbon rallied his gun crew.

"Come on, you spineless tadpoles! Get to it!"

The gun crew obeyed, manually hefting the thirty kilogram shells from the now deactivated autoloader to the main gun's chamber.

"Sir, Engineering reports drive core breach. Eezo possibly leaking into ventilation system."

Eezo poisoning was a bad way to go. The process was very similar to radiation poisoning as the element zero nodules interacted with the nervous system, creating tiny warp fields every time a nervous impulse passed and slowly shredding the body from the inside. Only those exposed before birth could adapt to the foreign material and gain biotic powers. Everyone else just died horribly. So it was an incredie show of bravery when the only reaction among the gun crew was a snide comment asking a colleague if he was carrying eggs. They kept working even as a thin blue mist started to seep into the compartment.

###

"Fire."

The main guns rattled the crippled ship as they fired, solid shells punching outwards and smashing into the shields of the monster ship in the centre of the Citadel. Around them the shattered remnants of the Citadel fleet rallied with the Alliance reinforcements, lending the fury of their own guns to the ferocious bombardment. A wave of Turian and Alliance bombers overwhelmed one of the few Geth destroyers left after the Alliance's surprise attack, blowing it into shards of broken hull as ripples played over the hull of the ship identified as Sovereign.

"Its shields are too strong!"

Kirosa stood up in his chair and pointed one finger at the image of the squid-like dreadnought.

"We are going to kill that thing. Keep firing."

His comm console buzzed and he hit the accept button, the voice of his gunnery chief coming through, sounding strained.

"I'm sorry Captain."

"Report, Charbon."

The only reply at first was a fit of wet coughing.

"Eezo mist is venting into gunnery, sir. I estimate you've got six minutes before we are no longer able to operate the main guns."

Kirosa clenched a fist.

"Get out of there, that's an order."

"Negative. We can give you six minutes with the main guns. Use them well. Charbon out."

"Charbon! Char ..."

The comm line abruptly cut.

"Keep firing. Everything we've got, I want it hitting that ship."

Munitions exploded in a cloud from the Vermaeto, volleys of mass accelerator rounds and disruptor torpedoes hammering Sovereign and lighting up the entire monster. It started to return fire, cherry red beams lancing out and cutting through Alliance and Turian cruisers in single shots. Then it turned, one tentacle aiming squarely at the Vermaeto. Kirosa gripped the arms of his chair.

"It's been an honour serving with ..."

Then the beam hit.

The weapon discharge scraped through the side of the vessel, cleaving off turrets and chunks of armour, blowing through critical components and bulkheads like ceramic plate was tissue paper. The shockwave coursed through the ship, rattling, then buckling corridors as the force ran back and forth before dissipating.

Kirosa was vaguely aware of the battle outside as he watched more and more of his ship decompress, the buckled bulkheads unable to withstand the force they were subjected to. As the ship flashed green with decompression compartment by compartment on the display red lightening crackled across Sovereign, unlatching from the Citadel tower. The decompression wave reached the bridge as a frigate, the Normandy, dove at the stricken ship, unleashing a single torpedo that punched clean through and hit something critical. Kirosa sat in his chair and straightened his uniform as the bridge bulkhead slowly buckled. He was a spacer. He always knew he would die sucking vacuum.

Sovereign exploded, the debris smashing into the Citadel as the remaining forces broke off, pursuing what was left of the Geth armada. The Vermaeto hung in space, barely in one piece, a few compartments still holding against the vacuum, a few crew still alive. Among the shards of debris blown out by the decompressing vessel were a number of bodies, shattered from multiple impacts with bulkheads and each other. Among those bodies was a Salarian dreadnought captain, his head miraculously intact with an expression of contentment on his face.


	2. Rage of a God

At the opening of the Reaper War, the Alliance Tenth Fleet responds to a distress call from the isolated colony of Valhalla. There, they encounter a single Reaper sent to harvest the colony's population.

mivpus presents -

RAGE OF A GOD (Excerpt from Careful what you Wish For)

2186 - Battle of Valhalla

As the first ship of the tenth fleet exited the relay, it could be seen as but a small blur of blue that suddenly became an Alliance Cruiser. Then another blur, and another and another. Before long, more than two-hundred Alliance vessels exited the relay's transit system.

Right next to the first cruiser, the Dreadnought SSV Hong Kong came into view, being almost double the length of the relative small eight-hundred meter cruiser. At the bridge of the Hong Kong, Admiral Anna Fisher of the Systems Alliance stood from her command-chair, observing how her crew sprang into action without her even needing to give them orders.

Pings, LADAR and active scans were carried out and returned, massive walls of data appearing before her on a holographic screen. With a small growl, she scrolled through the, to her, useless data and text, ending up with a scan and image of the system. Valhalla was only the third of five planets in the Midgard system, but it was the only one within the 'Goldilocks zone' of the system, meaning it was the only one capable of supporting human life.

In orbit around the planet of Valhalla, the active scans had painted two targets. Just two, and one of them wasn't even that big. She estimated it to be around the one hundred and fifty meters in length that the scans indicated. That one she wrote off as a major threat, in her mind already dividing up her forces to deal with the smaller target first. The rest of her forces, including the 'Spirit of Fire' Carrier, would deal with the bigger threat. And no shit it was bigger. The other vessel easily measured at the four kilometers at least, resembling a giant... cuttlefish? That couldn't be right, but nevertheless, it really did look like a big-ass squid.

Wait a moment... what had the brass said? That these 'Reapers' that the Council had told them about looked like giant squids? Anna could feel a dreading chill run down her spine as she watched the image of the biggest spaceship she had ever seen. Fuck, it was even bigger than the Hammer of Vengeance would be when finished. This wasn't good... actually this could potentially be a royal fuck-soup. Still, she had more than two hundred ships, and even if the small vessel was a threat too, she felt confident she had more than enough to kick their balls. If they had balls that was. Now she just needed to check if these really were these 'Reapers', and if they were, she would claim fucking FIRST BLOOD by towing back the battered hull of the big one.

Unless of course it managed to escape her wrath.

"Techs, open a transmission to the ships in orbit around Valhalla. I wanna know who we are dealing with here." She didn't get a verbal reply, instead she just watched as the people scattered at the consoles went to work. The large map of the galaxy in the middle of the room changed, becoming a projection of one of the ships: The big one.

"This is Systems Alliance Admiral Fisher. You are in Alliance space and your crafts are not displaying IFF's. Identify yourselves." She said, standing to her full height in front of the projection. That was odd, usually the projection would be green or just in regular colors. Now though, it was pure red. It was a little creepy actually.

"Organics. You tread where you are not needed. Your demands for the action of your orders are pathetic, irrelevant in the grander scheme of things. We are not bound by what you view as the rules of law in this galaxy. We are unbound by time and age. We are Supreme . You touch my mind, fumbling in the darkness that will soon envelop your worlds in ascending shadow and fire." that thing... it sounded as ominous as something or someone possibly could. That was also what helped Anna decide that whatever these ships were, they were hostile, or at least being very rude while not being allowed in Alliance Space.

"I take it you are not friendlies then?" She asked, gesturing for the bridge to power up the weapons and shields. they were still outside of effective range of weapons, but she knew they would have to pummel the enemy ships into submission, then maybe board and capture the commander.

"Friend... a term invented to give name to those you seek to exploit for aid, or risk non-functionality by aiding. We are neither. You come before us, seeking your own destruction yet claiming to seek ours. We are eternal, you are mere bacteria. We will ascend you to a higher level of existence." At this, Anna hovered her finger above the 'terminate' option.

"And I'm going to jam my foot up your snatch! Get ready to suck my ass!" She shouted, ending the call. when she did, she could see the worried and wondering faces of the crew nearby. With a grim smile, she smashed her fist into the consoles near the map, causing the artificial wooden construction to creak.

"Well? That Sea prawn just badmouthed us. What the fuck are we going to do about that, huh!" She called out, feeling a different, far more enjoyable tingling go down her spine as she shouted out. Anna had always been known for having a, at times, very bass voice. It was one of the effects of the surgery she had received as a ten-year old. Taking a kick to the throat had wrecked havoc on her voice-box, making it necessary to implant a small module that would compensate for the lifted voices. Now? now she felt like ripping someone's spine out and using it as a necklace.

A resounding Hooraa! sounded from the entirety of the bridge, as well as from the intercoms. The entire crew had listened in on the conversation with the unidentified vessels, and had listened to her responses as well. It pleased her to no end to see Jefferson stand at his position, fist raised as he shouted with the others. Anna, standing at the podium with the galaxy-map, held her hands up to instill silence. The entire ship instantly complied, only the cockpit continuing their vector. Anna switched the intercom on again, linking her up to the entire tenth fleet.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, girl- and boy scouts. I suspect that despite it being a supposed secret, some of you might have hear rumors about some new threat entering our galaxy. Well, I am here today, as are you, to witness that thát is sadly true. Valhalla is under attack by unknown entities with a ship spanning more than four kilometers in length. But hey, we are Humanity, fuck it all! We have never been the first or even the last to lie down and whimper. We have NEVER laid down to whimper. and you know why? Because we are the baddest motherfuckers in this entire galaxy! Now, this guy who thinks he and his friends can just attack our colonies and get away with it, just called us bacteria. US! I don't know about you people, but I say we take our collective firepower and shove it up their asses! This is the time where we show the galaxy that if this is indeed the new threat, Humanity will be the ones to draw first blood! We will be the ones to send these bitches screaming back to their momma, and we will dog them until we have towed their ships past the Citadel with the other races looking in awe. Because we are Humanity, and this... this is our land!" She almost screamed the last part, punching the air as she did. Did she ever love to give those speeches. Especially since they certified her to kick ass.

"Fuck yeah!" A collective cry came out from the intercom. It paid well to get up close and personal with your fleet, or at least make yourself a name in it. There wasn't a man or woman in the tenth fleet who didn't know that when Fisher gave a speech like that, they were going to get some scratches in their paint.

"Alright! Shanghai, I want you and battle group Zeta to engage the smaller of the two crafts. when you are done, rejoin efforts to scuttle the big one. All aside from the Shanghai and Zeta are to follow my lead. Let's do this!" She ordered, and the ships shot forward through space, the engines having been boosted by the down powering of all non-essential equipment.

As they neared the planet of Valhalla, Anna saw how the two vessels started breaking away from the planet, heading straight for her group instead. Despite what she had yelled and proclaimed in the speech, Anna was cautious to a certain degree. She didn't know just what these ships were capable off, especially since she remembered a defense fleet of at least twenty cruisers being stationed around the planet.

"Full power to forward shields. Ready torpedoes and spin up the main gun. I want every single weapon, every gun, cannon, fighter and pistol pointed at that thing. When we get in range I want the engines powered down and thrusters readied." She bellowed, watching the bridge explode into activity. She then brought up the data for maximum weapons range. Just ten seconds at this speed...

She wanted to slow down as soon as her own ships could fire, and then keep maximum distance for as long as possible. Still, this should be easy.

The seconds went by until the counter reached zero and flashed green.

"Gunnery, confirm target lock." She demanded.

"Lock confirmed"

"Send that little diaper-stain back to its momma. FIRE!"

And fire away they did.

The first volley to streak towards their still visually invisible targets was the plasma torpedoes. the Mark-IV torpedoes had proven their worth above Elysium from what the reports said, and now it was her turn to field-test them. The blue spheres of plasma contained within a magnetosphere soared through space, creating pretty tails of lost mass as they went. The mass and thereby kinetic energy lost was minimal at best though, and wasn't really of any concern to her.

As the torpedoes, hundreds in total, raced each other towards the targets, the ships soon followed it up with a barrage of heavy slugs from spinal mounted MAC's, and each and every turret capable of dishing out ship-grade damage towards the approaching vessels. Each of the hundreds of cruisers fired a fourteen kilo slug each seventh second from their main weapons. The slug, if impacting the armor of an unshielded ship, would cause the same destruction as if someone had planted two times the bombs that fell on Hiroshima. The frigates were more of a screening force, meant to decimate any fighter-crafts launched by the enemy. They were also effective at fast strikes that would let them hunt in wolf packs and surround the enemy. Still, when more than seventy frigates fired off a payload of ten kiloton bombs towards their enemy, it amounted to something bigger.

And then there was the Dreadnoughts. While Anna had the only Dreadnought in the fleet, it packed enough of a punch to catch up with the rest. Each fifth second, the main gun of the Hong Kong fired a twenty-five kilos slug that would create the same amount of destruction as eight times the Hiroshima bomb. Anna had no actual idea of how much that was, but it always seemed to be the pride of the drill sergeants that only the Destiny Ascension had more firepower than an Alliance Dreadnought. The days of the Turians as second best were past. Now humanity held that position.

"Let's see that over-sized squid take this." She muttered, keeping her eyes on the screens for the three seconds it took the first projectiles to impact on the surface of the hostile vessel, currently a quarter of the system away from them.

As the slugs and torpedoes impacted, Anna watched with glee as the vessel was bathed in fire and discharged plasma. Each of the torpedoes fired could break the hull of a cruiser in one go, capable of ignoring the shields while inflicting nuclear-like havoc on the ship.

"Yeah! Take that you... you... what the fuck?" Anna's smile dissipated as she watched the ship emerge from the radiated clouds of gas and debris, the apocalyptic destruction seemingly had had no effect at all. To make matters worse, it was traveling at speeds her own dreadnought couldn't rival. It was almost the same speed as a projectile fired from a frigate's main gun. Instead of turning to shoot from where she had suspected the weapons to be, the squid-like creature sailed through the barrages of fire and tungsten, seemingly oblivious to the amount of destruction being poured at it from two-hundred ships.

"Keep shooting! I want that fucker down in flames!"

As the ship closed what she suspected to be the maximum range, it spread out its tentacle-like appendixes, each the size of a frigate. Dark and blue lights could be seen decorating the hull on both sides, the underside looking like skeletal parts on some freaky creature. Then a sharp red light started shining in the underbelly of the ship, pointing straight at the ship next to Anna's.

"Full power to bow shields!" She yelled. Instantly her orders were followed, the kinetic barriers rising to 140%, making them actually visible despite the lack of incoming fire. The signatures of the other ships told her they did the same thing. And then the vessel fired.

A crimson beam. It was a crimson red beam and not a projectile as Anna had expected. It shot out from the underbelly of the ship, spearing the hull of the closest ship. It was the Cruiser SSV Copenhagen. Instead of the barriers and shields managing to take the blow, the kinetic barriers briefly flickered to life before dying in a glint of azure light. The Copenhagen had not been among the ships to be outfitted with the Mithril-shielding. There simply hadn't been enough time after the test above Elysium. And now the six-hundred men and women aboard the cruiser would pay for it.

She could only watch in dread as the ship was simply carved in two before exploding. That was no weapon she knew of. Not even the Cutter-beams could cause that kind of destruction, and definitely not at that range. The dread she felt when the cruiser was destroyed slowly changed into rage. Rage, for the lives lost to the commander of the enemy ship. Rage that this shit-stain had attacked humanity and had the impunity and audacity to kill her men.

"Keep shooting! Focus on any weak spots you can find, then relay the info to the rest of the fleet!"

Despite their best efforts, Anna could only watch with mounting dread and agony as her ships were removed from the SITREP, sometimes with only seconds between each destruction. She could follow perfectly well what happened through the screens connected to the exterior sensors and cameras.

A cruiser, the SSV Deutschland moved closer to the enemy vessel, pouring everything from the main gun to the GARDIAN-lasers at it. The lasers carved across the hull of the gigantic squid-like ship. As they did, the blue barrier that had stopped all other attacks ignored the lasers, instead letting them pass straight through. At first, Anna thought the golden lights she could see on the hull where the laser touched was where the infra-red laser carved through the hull. Instead, as she zoomed in with the camera, she felt her stomach revolt.

A bright gold barrier was layered beneath the kinetic barrier. It stopped the lasers from carving up the hull of the ship, instead simply absorbing the shots. What on Earth was this thing? Anna could only watch in horror as the enemy didn't think it sufficient to just shoot the cruiser. It landed on the hull of the Deutschland, shrugging off the pounding turret as they spewed enough fire at it each moment to deface most of Europe. Due to the size of the turrets, they were inefficient if equipped with mass accelerators. Instead, they were operating on the most simple and efficient form of gun: Gunpowder. Each projectile was an anti-hull shell packed with depleted uranium or explosive powder meant to penetrate or overload the barriers of hostile ships in knife-fights.

As the turrets, as well as the rest of the fleet kept up the fire, the squid dug its appendixes into the hull of the Deutschland, producing a screeching sound over the intercom as the ship was torn apart with simple brute force. It didn't even acknowledge the swarms of fighters, gunships and drones as they performed strafing run after strafing run, peppering the thing with shells, slugs, grains and plasma from the LA/AT 'Wasps'. It was pure luck that the vessel didn't seem interested in the gunships, as they would have been too slow to out-maneuver its fire. And with that one instant, the Deutschland, the first and biggest cruiser to ever be built at the Berlin Space Port, was reduced to floating debris as the core exploded from the damage sustained, spreading outwards in a ring of radioactive energy and radiation.

Not content with the deaths of the hundreds of servicemen and women aboard the cruiser, the gigantic ship lifted an 'arm', and simply pointed at one of the screening frigates. At first, it almost seemed like it was gesturing 'I'm coming for you next', but at that moment, a thinner beam shot from its tentacle. Anna's eyes widened in horror, realizing that the ship had only fired one of its weapons until that point.

The frigate, being meant for screening and raids, fighting light-weight pirates and the like, had no real chance against the destructive power of its enemy. As the frigate gunned the propulsion to escape the fiery death, the beam impacted on its shields, being deterred for only a few moments. As the shields were being burned away, the smaller ship turned to face the giant who willed its death.

The SSV Cataluña, having only moments left before destruction, took a course that the remainder of the fleet would remember always. With the laser-like weapon burning away the hull, only prevented from cutting the ship in two by the swerving of the pilot. It did not prevent the dismemberment of the right front of the ship though, hundreds of tons of metal being cut clean off by the beam.

"This is captain Josef Amado. It has been an honor serving with you all. Dios bendiga España!" And with that the line died to the frigate, and from the screens, Anna watched in unusual silence as the frigate diverted all power to engines and shields. It was painfully obvious what they were going to attempt.

With the speed of a bullet, the frigate used itself as a projectile as it powered into the underbelly of the gigantic vessel. The enormous ship shot at it, clipping off the front of the frigate, the mouth of the gun as well as the CIC being effectively evaporated and sucked into a vacuum. Anna, as well as most people on the bridge averted their eyes from the organic components traced to slip out from the openings in the hull. Then the frigate impacted, the hull crushing itself against the superior armor of the gigantic squid-like ship. At first, only the sight of the debris floating away was visible over the constant fireballs dotting the enemy's hull as the remaining hundred and eighty ships kept up the fire.

Then, a flicker of light, like a small spark that slowly grew in intensity as the drive core of the Cataluña was improvised and suffered a meltdown, effectively turning it into a nuclear bomb upon the hull of the enemy ship. A kamikaze attack, just like the Quarians had done it over Elysium. Had Valhalla belonged to the Quarians, it would have been poetic justice. Safe for just one thing.

It didn't work.

To the dread of every single person in the Tenth fleet, the super-ship kept up its slaughter, seemingly undeterred by the sacrifice of the frigate. As it landed upon the hull of another cruiser, Anna felt like screaming. Instead she just grit her teeth, her fist clenched. this wasn't a battle. It never had been it seemed. It was just slow slaughter, many before the invulnerable killer, the 'reaper' in their midst.

"Ma'am! The Zeta group just took down the smaller ship. They report fifty percent casualties, but the remaining vessels are on their way to help us out." Jefferson called out. Anna, to her credit, swallowed the rising lump in her throat and turned to face her second in command.

"Alright... have... have all remaining vessels focus fire on the enemy main weapon. If we can diminish its capacity to kill us, we can whittle it down." She said, feeling her voice strained from the stress. This was harrowing, watching her entire force lose more than fifty ships in less than as many minutes. The enemy ship just didn't fit logic. No ship, not even the armor and shields of the Arcturus station would have been able to withstand the punishment they had poured at it.

"Roger that. All vessels, transmitting new firing coordinates. Fire when locked on to new target area!" For not the first time, Anna was glad Jefferson was on her ship, directly under her command. He was invaluable, proving his worth when things got hairy.

The chimes of acknowledgements came in swiftly, marking the rest of the fleet ready to fire again. The moment the Hong Kong was locked on as well, Anna nodded at her second in command. The officer turned to face the gunnery stations, located along the walls of the CIC.

"All weapons, fire on my command." He said, waiting as the main gun took the final second to reload. Noting that the weapons were green across all boards, he gave the order.

"Fire!"

Once more, the entire fleet fired in unison, this time the target being the small ocular point from where the most destructive of the ship's weapons was fired from. Hundreds of massive streaks of blue soared through the void, followed by missiles and regular shells fired by the turrets, in appearance similar to long snakes of yellow glints waving as they followed their counterparts towards the enemy ships. All the while the squid-like enemy just kept its killing-spree up, carving through the hulls of cruisers no matter the strength of their shields.

When the projectiles impacted, the lightshow was awesome in all senses of the words. The first volleys of projectiles only impacted on the barriers, putting strain on what had simply shrugged off the murderous assaults of hundreds of ships. Still, the united fire seemed to be more than the kinetic barriers could handle, and with a wave of blue light swimming across the hull, the first line of barriers died, leaving the golden barrier beneath to absorb the remainder of the shots while the ship itself seemed more focused on spitting red death through the hull of a heavy cruiser.

As the projectiles began hitting the golden barrier, the commander of the squid-like vessel seemed to realize that his enemies had started thinking out a different strategy for bringing him down. As the destroyed hull of the cruiser started floating apart, the enemy vessel began a course that would take it to the relay of the system.

And straight through the ranks of the fleet.

"Keep shooting! The asshole is trying to flee!" Anna bellowed, making a few of the nearby techs wince at the anger and rage in her voice. What they also saw was that the enemy ship seemed adamant that his course had to go through Anna's ship, the Hong Kong being right between it and the relay.

Anna saw it as the enemy commander playing 'chicken' with her. Unfortunately, the bastard wouldn't need to back out, his ship being big enough to simply destroy hers upon impact.

"Evasive maneuvers! Keep us clear of that thing! But DON'T. STOP. SHOOTING!" On her orders, the Hong Kong took a relative nosedive, making it beneath the hulking monster as it sped towards them. It ended up being uncomfortably close, the monster's arms being close to scraping the hull of her ship. Even if 'close' was measured in the tens of kilometers, it was still close enough that a visual from the exterior screens showed her the sparkling red light emitted from the assumed firing chamber beneath the arms. It crackled and glinted with the dreaded red energy, but no fiery death came for them. The weapon apparently had stopped working. As well as the rest of the fleet, not wanting to risk hitting the admiral.

"I never said to stop shooting! Just kill the critter before it runs away!" She shouted into the fleet-com, getting only a few affirmatives in return. It wasn't really all that necessary either, as the rest of the fleet simply reopened their guns, letting continued fire pour down over the enemy ship, now starting to show cracks in the armor, the golden barrier sparkling angrily with each impact. As she brought up the feeds from the other ships, Anna smirked as each hit caused the strained barrier to strain even further. Soon, it would have to give up. Her smirk was diminished though, as the enemy crashed through first one frigate not having gotten out of the way, then a cruiser unloading a full barrage directly into the waiting maw of the approaching ship. The barrage was effective in the sense that it caused the final barriers to sparkle and die in a burst of gold and crimson fire, a sparkling light briefly bathing the vessel before it sailed through the cruiser, crushing the smaller ship underfoot with sheer size, the armor not suffering under the same strain that brought the cruiser to its destruction.

But that was what sealed the fight, the banishment of the shields and barriers that had so far protected the vessel from incoming fire. Now that it was wiped out, each slug and missile impacted directly against the hull of the giant amongst ships. The slugs from cruisers and frigates making the armored hull crack and dent with each megaton impact of raw kinetic energy. As the Hong Kong was finally pointed at the enemy vessel, the dreadnought unleashed every single weapon in its arsenal, crimson and ultraviolet GARDIAN-lasers cutting at the hull while slugs from both main and secondary guns impacted on the belly of the ship, closely followed by the remaining torpedoes, as well as the few rockets still in their pods. Everything was launched at once, aiming to utterly disembowel the ship that singlehandedly had cost Anna more men than any fleet ever before.

As the first torpedo hit, the already cracked and dented plating of the ship was punched through, the plasma melting through the now unprotected armor and hull of the enemy ship. With each Mk-IV torpedo hitting its mark, a blob of the hull was simply melted away, the super-heated gas having eaten and burned away at the super-dense metal. Even so, it took the combined force of everything the Tenth Fleet could throw at the monstrous giant ship to cause it to finally buckle under the whittling fire. With what would have been a thunderous crack of grinding noise and explosions if the vacuum hadn't chocked out sound, an arm was shot clean off the super dreadnought, sent tumbling through space as the ship attempted to smash its way through the fleet to the safety of the relay.

The Hong Kong had a clear shot at the now ripped open insides of the ship. With what could have been taken for the very ship growling in grim satisfaction and bloodlust, the main gun was fired, two shots flying out at the interval of dangerous three seconds between each. As they impacted, the first shot exploded inside the ship, causing plumes of fire to pour from every opening that had been made so far in its hull. The second slug dealt the final blow, ripping through the entire ship before exiting on the opposite side of the now burning hull, continuing its course into deep space.

It was over.

Anna turned to look at her XO before talking. It wasn't the cheery victory-speech she had imagined when she had thrown her fleet at only two ships. Instead, it was a more somber question:

"What are our casualties Commander?" She asked. She could see the vast fields of debris floating around in the void, the occasional flame still burning the remainder of what air was in the wrecks.

"Ninety-six ships... ma'am... we... We lost almost half the fleet against that thing."


End file.
